


Happenstances

by MySecretIndulgences



Series: Happenstances [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: BL, Canon Gay Relationship, Castles, Fantasy, Gangs, Gay Male Character, M/M, Slave Trade, Slow Build, Slow To Update, original race, rapist is NOT part of the relationship, salvery, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:32:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MySecretIndulgences/pseuds/MySecretIndulgences
Summary: Before kidnappings, pirate ships, or lands of strange creatures, Raphen was just another streetrat, a thief that was good at what he did. Before courts and lords and ladies, there were guild boundaries and underground markets. This is the beginning of that story, where his life changed and one story became another.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to rewrite this whole story, so expect chunks of chapters with long breaks between uploads. Constructive criticism is most welcome, but the key here is constructive - if you hate the idea or how I write, you don't have to read it.

‘ _It’s the ones you trust, the ones you never really see, that do you in,_ ’ Raphen thought as he shifted, trying to relieve the pain in his rope bound wrists and ankles. They burned along their red chaff lines, and he received only splinters in his back from the wagon's wooden floor for his trouble.

  
He bit back a hiss - he should lay still and silent. It'd be smart to go unnoticed. With a bit of help he’d already been noticed once by snatchers, those whispered of outlaws that knocked out street-rats and vagabonds like him to take to the southern market.

  
The bulky bald man serving as a guard by the wagon’s back flap snapped off a strand of gruff swear words before cracking his whip. Laying two people over, a boy whimpered, then fell silent. The wagon's wheels and the muffled horse team's hoofs softly thump-thumped as they went along the packed dirt road toward the south. Always toward the south.

  
He hoped that they would stop soon. Hunger was always there now, a monster digging a pit in his stomach that grew deeper every day. Not that it hadn't been there before, but back on the streets there had always been something to eat, even if that something was nicked from some back garden or window. To survive on the streets you had to keep your eyes open, always watching for openings, and for trouble. As his stomach demanded to be fed, Raphen let his thoughts wander back to the streets whose layout was as familiar as the creases in his palms and their layers of dirt.


	2. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's where the story really begins.

Raphen crouched, motionless as the familiar mix of spices and perfume wormed their way into his nose. Strong, but not enough to hide the putrid scent of bodies sweating down below. Today it was worse than most. A light breeze blew from the west, bringing with it gutted fish and waste, but it also brought the sound of a soft whistle. The signal.

As the sun beat on his back Raphen looked carefully across the market stalls filling the row below. The voices of jabbering shoppers filled his ears, different as shadow and sunbeam from the often silent, carrion-bird like voices of the shop keepers who lounged lazily after their noonday meal. His eyes passed tanner and smith side by side to land on the jeweler. The mark was there, but where was Siree?

Raphen's heart sped up, a trickle of dread creeping in. Where was she? She was supposed to be beside the tanner - there.

Raphen relaxed as his green eyes, their pupils slit like that of a cat's, penetrated the shade cast by a textile cart to glimpse a dozing beggar. The figure reclined in a tattered, ill-cared-for-cloak, its hood spilling out a long, snarled beard colored through with shoots of gray. A fake, but no one below knew that.

Usually, all beggars were asked to move on - if they're not driven away outright from the marketplace - but who'd have the heart to drive an old man away from a spot of shade, out of the way, where he wasn't making a nuisance of himself by hanging at people's elbows? The perfect look out.

__'_ _ __Quick now, or never at all._ _ __'_ _

After a final look to make sure no eyes were on him, Raphen laid on his stomach across the edge of the roof, stone tiles biting into his chest as he slid over. The beggar's snores covered up the sound of Raphen landing on soft feet and bent knees. He rolled to the side with a small smile. The fall had barely stung his feet.

"Bet a loaf someone spots you," Siree whispered.

"Get ready to pay up," Raphen whispered back.

Flush against the cart, Raphen looked around before heading behind it. He crawled between it and a gray stone wall, keeping his five foot frame low and out of sight. Only the stalls on the other side of the row were connected to buildings, this side just backed against a blank and unimportant wall.

Raphen stopped behind the jeweler. They'd noticed this morning that the one running this shop wasn't the usual. Instead he was a cousin, judging from the likeness of his face, but this cousin leaned back into his folded chair and closed his eyes. The fool didn't know to watch for thieves.

__'Look. Look__.' Raphen's mind warned. Anyone's word could ruin him. If a rat got caught stealing, they could get anything from thrown in the palace's dungeon to beaten within an inch of their life.

No one was watching. His heart pounded.

Quick as a cat he poked his head up and looked out across the table of metallic necklaces and armbands. Spotting one that was unremarkable enough to be forgotten once it wasn't there - hopefully - but still good enough to be worth something to his thief lord, his hand darted out. A silver necklace featuring a small locket with a bird adorning it left the table top to lay around his neck, hidden beneath his lightly spun, stained shirt. The motion was fluid, familiar.

' _ _Got it. Now get back, and don't get spotted.__ '

With a deep - but silent - breath, Raphen turned. He put his hands and feet to the stone and started climbing the wall behind the cart. The cart's bulk at his backside kept him out of sight as his agile fingers found crevices between the stones to grip while his feet pushed him up.

Halfway up the cover at his back stopped. He took a breath. He kept his pace, confident no one would look at him directly. It was amazing the stuff that people ignored because it was in the corner of their eye.

Someone shrieked behind him. Thinking himself made, Raphen scrambled the rest of the way up. His legs pushed him up as his hands closed on orange roofing tiles baking in the sun. The wiry cords of muscle wrapping his arms pulled first his torso, then his legs,onto the rooftop. Almost there. As his feet cleared the edge, a tile slid out. Below the shrieking was joined by yelling.

Raphen couldn't help but steal a look over his shoulder, only to see a large hound rushing across the marketplace with a cloth dolly clamped in its mouth, and a merchant's kid barreling after it. Raphen barked a laugh as the girl ran after the hound, her finery flapping around and her green cap askew. The kid called apologies over her shoulder to shopkeepers who found their afternoon naps interrupted, while others jumped out of the beast's way.

Without another look Raphen stood and ghosted across the rooftop, out of the market district and toward the less kept streets of the old town. His leather boots kept an easy pace across tile as he ran, until bare stone replaced the roofing tile below him.

Raphen slowed his steps, glancing around the rooftop to find a familiar rope tied to a post at the building's side. Taking a deep breath to fill his lungs and calm the excitement racing through his heart from having succeeded - they'd needed this theft to work - he crossed to the rope and started down. The building grew to tower on both sides as the rope's coarse strands, worn from weeks of use, slid along his hands. They'd need to switch it, and its location, soon.

With only half a story to go, Raphen dropped down into the empty alley below. Within a bend in the building a wall had crumbled, forming a doorway. Brushing aside tattered cloth that covered the opening, he turned sideways and stepped through the crevice in the wall.

Inside, the building's inner and outer walls of the ran on either side, lit by a hole at the end that let light stream in. Raphen paused, stretching his arms above his head before he padded across a mix match of discolored rugs to the side where a crate sat.

He looked across the rows of bits of glass and frayed strings along with other odds and ends Siree kept on this makeshift shelf. He didn't know where she picked up half of these things from.

Where was that kid? During the day, it was safer for her to make her way back on her own rather than with him on a nickin' day, but the time she took to get back got under his skin as firmly as if she were his blood sister. He looked at the items cluttering the box. Maybe he should leave it here, and go look, if she took much longer. He lifted the necklace from where it lay hidden around his neck and put it on the shelf, covering it with a scrap of blue velvet so moth eaten it barely concealed the glint of the chain.

He turned and paced on down the long, narrow room, stepping around first his then her nest like bed made of cloth. He just passed their pile of stuff used for disguises when the swish - pat - pat of Siree's footsteps reached his ears. A couple more steps brought her inside.

Down was the sack of a hood that had hidden her, showing off her brown locks hacked off at her shoulders from when she'd try to copy his. He was glad hers didn't have the range from near black to auburn, or the slight wave that his did, no matter what she wanted. It protected her from gettin' too much attention. Gone too was the beard that she'd been wearing earlier, which had left her face - and wide smile - unremarkable, except for her upturned nose.

"What did you do?" He asked, the edges of this mouth pulled down as he stepped up in front of her. She only struck it in the air like that when she'd gotten away with something.

"Nicked somethin'." She replied as she walked around him, smiled crinkling open as his frown deepened.

"Nicked what?" He crossed his arms as he turned and continued to look down at her. He was about twenty but he'd already stopped growing, and she still had to look up to see his face.

"Just a loaf a bread's all." She said, golden bread shining against the dirt ground into her skin as she held it out like a peace offering.

"Just a loaf 'a bread, huh?" He said as he took it and ripped the bread in half.

Something to be a little proud of, a theft right off a baking rack. It was still warm, heat along with its smell rolling toward him, spread out, begging to be eaten and for him to forget anything further - but she'd done it plenty of times before. Both of them had.

"Come on Siree, don't be tryin' to pull no wool over my eyes, I be knowin' you better than that. What else'd you nick?"

"With all the noise the mutt and the blue blood was makin', and with how he was never watchin' proper anyways, I took this."

With a flourish she held out a gold bracelet set with red gems framing the band. The gems are shot through with flaws, even if they are a good size, but still, it's too much. Too close to being too valuable. They'd have to wait weeks, maybe months before nickin' from any jeweler again and hope no one connected them to the theft. Jewelers gossiped like birds, and soon they'd all know about the thefts.

"Didn't I do good Raph?" She asked. Shit, he'd been quiet too long.

"It's great Siree, beautiful." It was done. She wouldn't understand if he explained why they shouldn't nick so much at a time from one vendor. He hated making the kid cry. "With what we nicked today, I bet we can pay dues to the thief lord, and have enough to not have to nick any food for a week."

Siree smiled and turned her back to walk over to her shelf. She cupped her hands, letting the bracelet roll down to land between a shell and the bundle Raphen placed their earlier. A warm grin spread across Raphen's face as he ripped the bread and held out half.

"Eat up, then we'll find a trader that'll take both our loot."

Straightening back up, Siree brushed her hair from her face and took the bread from his hand.

"We?"

"I'll go." Raphen stated, pausing to make sure she got it. "Just be ready to report for dues." 


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A trip to a market full of shadows. The reason I'm posting on here is for feedback, so please let me know what you think of the story so far. Is there something you're looking forward to in the story? Something nagging you that you would like to know about? Comment down below, and I'll see what I can tell you without any spoilers.

Three streets over from the market, Raphen stepped between the pillars of two vacant buildings. Spotting a familiar wooden drain cover, he crouched and wrapped his hands around its worn rope handle to pull it up and set it to the side. Leaning forward slightly, he peered down into the hole to make sure the ladder was there before lowering his legs in. His feet brushed the rungs and he pulled the cover in place above him before he climbed down, out of the harsh light and into cool, inky depths.

With a brush of his hand to check the knife at his hip, Raphen sank into the Shadow's market. A soft chime brushed Raphen's ears and led him in as he kept his head down. Bits of conversation rolled around him as he passed shops as mundane as dye merchants snuggled against others holding skitter pit fights.

"Thinkin' of spendin' my money on some scaled rat loser?" Mari's blond hair shone as she fell into step beside Raphen, the bulk of her squinty-eyed, bald bodyguard protecting her back. With a hardness like that on her face, she was a far cry from the wide-eyed apologetic merchant girl she'd been this morning, but that was what masks of cloth and dirt were for.

"You'll get your money in time for dues." Raphen picked up his pace a step.

"Make sure I do," she said but continued to walk beside him.

Raphen narrowed his eyes. What was she after?

"You seen anyone else today?"

"Why?" It wasn't as if he stayed around the other guild members. Mari was one of the more tolerant members, and he and Siree never did more than hire her to play a third.

"You seen my Ra?" Ra, he'd never forget someone like that. Blond and blue eyed he was Mari's twin in all but blood, that and the mystery of how, despite being a rat like the rest of them, the pair never seemed to get as dirty.

"No, I haven't. You check the moonbeam dens?"

Mari laughed, a shrill curtle that made Raphen want to cover his ears. Where Mari's never failed to remind him of what he was, Ra's laugh was warm and full, like something in Ra's belly was overflowing into Raphen's.

"Wouldn't tell me if you had would ya'?"

"I haven't seen him, Mari."

Raphen saw Mari's lips pinch together and her eyes glisten. As they stepped between the light of one red lantern and another, both disappeared.

"See ya at dues," she said, taking her silent body guard with her.

Raphen shook his head and continued on, heading toward the back of the market. When he came to the silk covered cave entrance of the market's main moonbeam lounge, he took a step to cross to the other side of the street, and paused. He walked closer to look through the curtain, and into the smoky purple and blue haze. His eyes tightened as he scanned the figures reclining around the area.

"Want in?" A husky voice on the other side of the curtain asked.

Raphen left without a word, his heart low. Ra's blond head had been absent from the crowded room.

__'It's dues night. He'd not go there anyway.'__ Raphen thought. Ra might have a pretty face, but he was good in a fight. If something had happened to the guy, news would have spread like fire already. He was worryin' over nothing.

' _ _Need to get goin'.'__

Soon he stepped up to a wooden door carved with a tangled knot at its top. He knocked his knuckles twice on the wood, waited, and knocked once again.

"Where ye been boy?" A rattly voice, like coals crumbling in a fire, asked.

"Around. Ya gonna open up Larne?"

Larne grumbled beneath his breath. The wooden door creaked open far enough for Raphen to duck beneath a string of tarnished chimes and slip in, before closing behind him. Raphen waited for the old man to go deeper into the shop before following two steps behind.

The hall he came through was bare, but racks lined the inner room Larne led him to. Items of all kinds made his fingers itch, but he kept his hands at his side. Nick from a buyer, and soon you'd not have anyone to sell to. If you lived long enough to sell anything again.

"What ye bring me?" Larne asked as he plopped his bent form down into a wooden chair thickly padded with blue cushions. One of his hands curled around the arm, while the other elbow sat upon the rest at an angle to hold his hand near his face. Raphen remained standing across from the man, avoiding the matching chair to the one Larne sat in.

"These."

From around his neck, Raphen pulled a pouch out from where it lay beneath his shirt. His fingers yanked at a knot keeping the pouch closed and pulled out both the necklace and the bracelet.

"Sit down," Larne commanded as he took both pieces from Raphen's hand with his own, fingers like claws leading to a palm almost as wrinkled as his dark face.

As Raphen sat down Larne pulled himself up from his chair with a heave, and walked across to one of the crowded shelves. After shifting a few items aside he pulled out a metal eyepiece and took the lot of items over to a candle burning on an empty table.

"You in some sort a' trouble?" Larne asked as he held the gold bracelet Siree had nicked up to the candle's light.

"No." Not that he knew of.

"Skitter's dung. You know better than to nick this much."

"Can you pay me? Or not?"

"Yeah, an' you'll have it, long as you bring no trouble to my door."

With a sigh, Raphen stood from his chair, slowly uncoiling. He'd known Larne had the coin to buy the stuff, but bringing two pieces the same night was stupid. Nick, dump, and spread out the trades. Always.

"Two silver for the necklace, six gold for the bracelet," Larne rattled off when he saw Raphen standing not far behind him.

"Ten gold for the lot," Raphen bartered.

"Nine, and two silver. Not a copper more."

"Deal."

When Larne turned around the pieces were gone, but the promised coins sat within his palm.

"Watch ye back out there," Larne said as Raphen's fingers took the coins and dropped them into his pouch with a jingle.

"Don't we all?" Raphen asked as he turned to leave.

Before he could step out, the old man's gnarled hand grabbed and clenched around his wrist.

"Mean it. You watch ye back, and watch ye kid. People goin' missing." Larne's blue eyes glared at him, fingers tightening painfully like a claw.

"I know." Raphen said as a chill slipped down his spine like a drop of cold sweat.

Larne released his wrist with a shake of his head. Raphen stepped out of the shop, the door following right behind him with a squeak and a thunk.

Raphen slipped the pouch back away, his thoughts circling as he walked through the market. As he passed an indent in the wall too small to hold a shop in, he vaguely saw a slow hand reaching toward his feet. The sweet scent of redflower liquor came stronger with each breath as he stepped around the drunkard. The smell of the man in rags peeked through that of the liquor, and rioted as the man suddenly shot up to sitting and cackled.

Raphen dodged far to the side of his reaching hands. Too far - his left shoulder knocked against that of a tall figure shrouded from head to toe in a black cloak.

Raphen felt his toes snag in a hole on the uneven floor. Raphen rushed to get his arms out to stop his fall as the ground grabbed for him.

"You should watch your step." He thought he heard a silvery voice say as a hand pulled him upright and released him within a breath. The voice was soft like nothing he'd heard before, flowing yet strong.

Raphen turned with one hand on his knife, but whoever it had been was already moving.

__'Who was that?'_ _

What would the face of someone with a voice like that look like? Raphen thought the voice had been male, but he wasn't sure.

His eyes searched those walking by, the near shops, and shadows both full of figures offering different services and those seemingly empty. Was the figure gone? Raphen reached up to finger the leather cord that his pouch hung from but it wasn't there.

__'What? No - did he take it?'_ _

As he searched Raphen saw the edge of a black cloak going around a corner.

He needed that coin. Eyes set on where that edge of cloak vanished, Raphen hurried down the street and around the corner, just in time to see it slip away around a bend. His feet sped up with each step he took past bricks of dye and a seal-forgery shop, weaving around other market goers as he fought to keep from running.

Raphen's curiosity burned even as outrage and disbelief widened his eyes. Where was the person from? Were they a foreigner? He couldn't remember ever having seen cloth like what that cloak was made of, and no one had stolen something from him that smoothly before.

At the next corner the figure turned left, heading deeper into the market. Raphen jumped a vat of pickled frogs placed in the middle of the street and ran after them. He knew this market's current, it's twists and turns. Why wasn't he gaining on them? They were still just barely within sight.

He rounded the next corner, and for a moment the man stood still at the far end of the lane. They were stopped between two stalactites, just standing there looking back at him.

They stepped back into shadow, and darkness seemed to swallow them. Raphen yanked his eyes away from the form as dizziness swept through him. He slowed his steps and slid to a stop.

He looked up at where the figure had been, but the shadows were back to normal, and they were gone.

With how fast they'd been, he wouldn't catch them. If they'd been able to stay just that far ahead, it was because they'd let Raphen keep up. They, whoever they were, had been holding back. That was something he didn't have time to deal with, not tonight.

"Skitter's dung," Raphen mumbled, turning to look at where the mystery of a man disappeared from. After a moment of staring forlornly there, he finally turned his back and retraced his steps across the market. His mind circled around what Siree and he would do without those coins.

They had a couple coppers coins saved at home for the harvest festival next month. He'd meant to use it for candied sweets, but it might be enough to cover dues. It'd have to do. 


	4. Chapter Three

Raphen walked down the docks beside the creaking of fishing ships that stood anchored as they rested for the night. Their shadows stretched across the dock's wooden planks like a cloak, shrouding him and Siree.

"You should have waited for me at home. It's not safe right now." Raphen said as his fingers reached up to tug lightly on the pouch's cord.

He'd thought that the coins were gone for good, stolen by some stranger because he'd been careless. When he'd climbed out of the market Siree had been there. She'd looked as confused as he'd felt, with her head tilted to the side and lips pinched together as she stared down at a pouch in her hand. His pouch.

She'd said that some man in a black cloak had thrown it to her. He'd also warned them to stay inside tonight. What kind of game was the guy playing? At least they hadn't had to go back by their home.

"There ain't time for me to wait there after you meet a trader. Last time we was almost late for dues." There was heat in Siree's voice. For a few months now, she'd started getting angry with him when he was cautious with her.

This time she was right, but seeing her standing alone right above the entrance after what he'd heard still worried him. He said nothing more as they jumped off the end of the docks onto soft, muddy dirt. They walked along the bank of the lake, the buildings that clung nearby dwarfed by its size.

Avoiding the light of the widely spaced torches, they followed the edge of the dark, empty lake, toward a cluster of vacant squat wooden buildings.

"Raph, why'd they build it, and'em others to begin with?" Siree asked.

"Before they built that road off to the west,I think ships used to travel both ways along the river. They rented'em out as warehouses."

"Ready to head into the Trough?" Raphen asked as they neared the guild-house. Boards covered the spaces where vents had once been and stretched across both of the main doors, but that was normal. They headed around the side to the back.

"But boats don't go up and down it. The water won't let 'em."

"That was when witches could be commissioned, and travelers from far countries came through. They used magic to power their ships, not just the water's flow or sails."

"If I saw one of 'em, I'd nick what I could from 'em first chance I got." Siree said as they came to the second of the seemingly empty buildings.

"I bet." Raphen said with a chuckle. "Just make sure you stick to humans, alright? No Night Children - no cold ones. Stay far away from 'em, and wicked beauties, and witches. If a witch caught ya, you'd wish you'd got food poisoning 'stead."

"Aw if I stuck 'clear of all outies, I'd never have known ya."

He had to give her that. Not just his eyes, but his hair, and even his dusky skin - when it was clean enough to see its color - was like no one else's in the city. Where others faces were square or round, his was sharp.

It would've been nice if his face shape and smaller stature was what kept others away, if they'd just thought him weak, but as they walked up to the two hulking guards, both glared.

Rotten luck. Chaze and Muddick were guarding the door tonight. On Raphen's right Muddick ground what was left of his rotting teeth and twisted his pockmarked face into a grimace. His baggy green shirt wound into a mess of wrinkles as he crossed his arms. Muddick stepped forward between Raphen and the door.

Keeping Siree at his back, Raphen kept his weight even between his two feet as he took another step forward before stopping. He looked up from a patch in Muddick's shirt to lock eyes with the man.

"You two plannin' on comin' in?" Muddick asked around a wad of chewing root.

Without a word Raphen dug a line through the dirt in front of him, then kicked his heel through it to finish the signal.

"Hurry up. Dues start soon." Chaze said and waved them in with his hand.

Raphen stepped around Muddick and passed Chaze as he went inside.

As they entered the single long room that made up most of the Trough, Siree's hand grasped his as it always did when they came inside. He squeezed her hand and gave her shoulder a little nudge, letting her know that he was here with her.

She pulled her eyes away from glaring at someone coming down from the loft that ran all the way around the perimeter of the room to look at him. Something in her eyes was new, something he couldn't decipher. His eyes slid away from hers to see who she'd been glaring at.

Ra's bright teeth flashed a smile as bright as his blond hair as he finished coming down a ladder attached to the loft.

During this time members of the guild would normally begin to trickle back into the Trough, and when the night air emptied of targets, most would pile onto the hay that was kept there to sleep on. Not Ra. He usually stuck close to Mari, and that meant that just like Raphen and Siree he didn't come back to the Trough except for when dues demanded it.

Raphen's heart lightened as he started toward Ra. He wove around a cluster of fellow guild members all about his age, each with cloths as shabby as his own, but barefoot. Raphen smiled inwardly as the soft leather of his boots softened each step he took on the building's stone floor.

Raphen shot a quick glace down as he stepped up beside Ra, and sure enough, the other man also wore short leather boots like him. Seemed like not sitting around the guild as much had its own perks.

"Raphen," Ra said in greeting as he leaned back against a bare wooden beam that stretched for the roof.

Raphen stood beside him and leaned in to whisper. "Ra, I have the pay for your squad."

"Oh. Thanks. I was gonna come find ya to ask about it." Ra stood, placing his weight on first one foot, then shifted to the other as he looked at the chair and empty chest that sat in the center of the room, waiting for their thief lord to come.

"I hate waiting for him to start," Raphen said.

"Yeah, but we both made it if you're payin'," Ra said, eyes never moving from that empty chest. The thief lord's right and left hands brought it out and emptied it after dues night every week.

"Right," Raphen said with a small grin. It didn't matter if the rest of the guild pulled back from him, sneered, or hushed when he came by. A few, like Ra, were alright. At least he had that.

"Hey, if you got any extra, I know an inn you could take Siree to. She isn't like Mari, but I bet she'd love to stay an evening at one. The Tipsy Sailor, it's called."

"What's it like?"

"It's full of folks that lead hard lives. Most don't bother to clean up, but you can get a warm drink, and a warm bed. Some'll even share that warm bed with you, for coin."

"Thanks Ra." Raphen said as the back door opened, and his thief lord came in backed by five of the guild.

He didn't know his thief lord by any other name, but that was enough. He'd back-stabbed and bribed his way to the top of the guild, Black Adder, and still had the scars and the muscle to show how.

The room hushed as the man's one eye ran over those present. "Gailie," the thief lord called out the first name, he knew them all, and a stout woman with her hair in a greasy braid walked forward to toss in two coppers.

So it went, a name called and everyone tossing in two coppers, most kids tossed in just a one. Siree had tossed one, up until the spring of this year.

Raphen opened his coin pouch and pulled out a silver coin, its metal dull in the sparse light of the few torches that burned. He tapped Ra's shoulder before passing it over and going back to Siree.

"Faon." The thief lord called out, but no one came forward.

Raphen's gut twisted, clenching tight as the seconds ticked by and no one came forward. You had to pay your dues. Miss one, and that would be it for you. The smart ones never showed their faces around the Trough again. Those that did usually ended up in the lake.

The thief lord snorted. Might be to cover a cough, but probably to cover a laugh. Rumor claimed that those who ended up in the lake did so by his own, mangled hands.

Raphen closed his eyes, and saw Faon's face. Not a kid, not grown, but in between, like Siree. His shaggy brown hair always hung into his eyes, and curled around his face. Faon still had a spatter of freckles from when he burned his cheeks four years ago as he played in a fountain with Raphen, Siree, Ra, and Mari. That was back before Raphen'd gotten as fast as he was now, and not as many had avoided him.

Raphen pulled away from Siree and walked silently across the stone floor. Whispers sprang up as he tossed a coin into the chest.

"Fool." Someone said. Others mocked him. He said nothing as he walked back over to Siree.

He had the coin to keep Faon from disappearing this time, so he'd used it. Siree crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and glared at those around them.

Raphen pulled on a mocking smile, tasting bitterness in his mouth as the thief lord called for silence and continued. When his name and Siree's were called, one after another, Raphen walked over to toss in the coin with Siree. After it landed with a metallic clank of coin on coin, they walked across the room, and right on out of the guild.

"I hate it there Raph." Siree said once they were out of the Trough and away from the warehouses. "Let's go. Get somewhere else. Join a guild that won't be like that."

"Everyone'll be like that Siree," Raphen answered. No one would take members from a rival guild, and if they didn't join another guild, it wasn't as if they could go anywhere. They were like rats, stuck in this sewer of a town. They could claw at its edges, gnaw at their situation, but it wouldn't get them anywhere.


	5. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nudity warning.

The next night, Raphen stood alone at the entrance to a busy street, staring at the inn Ra had recommended. Ra had been alright, but Raphen had yet to relax. It felt as if eyes were watching him wherever he went.

Raphen's fingers squeezed his pouch and the coins it held as he looked at the inn's face. Two stories, with a bar on the bottom and rooms up top with shudders, but no glace.

Why not rent a room? It wasn't too expensive, and for once they'd have a bed that didn't have lice and a room without roaches at the edges.

A smile pulled at him as he crossed the street and went in, vanishing only while he haggled with the innkeeper for a room. He paid the man, in a tailored green suit that stretched to keep in the rolls of fat around his middle, only half a silver. Turning, Raphen almost ran out of the smoky inn, grinning from ear to ear with the key clutched in his right hand. He did run all the way home.

He stepped over the rubble that served as their front door and found Siree at the window, looking down at the city's nightlife.

"Come on Siree!"

"What is it? Where are we goin' Raph?" Her eyes lit with the light of a smile spreading across her face, fingers tapping the wall behind her as she held her breath and waited for him to answer.

"It's a surprise. You still got that over-sized cloak stashed here?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Put it on." There was no telling what kind of characters would be at the inn when they came through. "Put it on, and then we'll get goin'."

"Alright."

She dashed over to her nest and pulled out the cloak, swinging it onto her shoulders and pulling up the hood. Just like that they left, traveling back over alleys and rooftops that Raphen had already run once that night.

"So where are we goin'? Shadow Market?"

"Naw." He said as he led Siree down a pile of crates between two buildings that were too far from each other to jump.

She stayed silent as they climbed up the building on the other side, and for three streets after that, before hitting him with more questions.

"We raiding a house finally? Did you partner us with Mari's group? Is this what you talked to Ra about?"

"Naw, erm sort of, Siree. You'll see," he said over his shoulder, stopping on top of a roof to look back at her and grin.

"What is it?" She demanded.

Raphen shook his head and dashed forward, running over the rooftop. At the other side he dropped down a story into an ally. He walked between buckets of slop and stopped at where it led onto a regular street.

"Raph, that ain't... that, that's a street. We can't be goin' out there." Her grin was gone. She stepped back from the edge of the ally and shook her head. Her hands whitened, knotting around the edge of the cloak and pulling it closed.

"We can. See that inn across from us Siree? We're gonna stay there tonight, and tomorrow night. I rented us a room. With a real bed, and some sheets, and everything!"

"You rented us a room?" She repeated, and a slow smile crept across her face.

Raphen felt relief sweep through him as that smile returned. She wasn't angry about him spending coin, and she did actually want to stay somewhere clean for once, like he did. It'd be money well spent.

"Yeah, come on!" He replied, taking her hand in his and leading her across the street.

He looked around the smoky room of the bar, and spotting the innkeeper, went over to confirm that they'd be using their room now.

"It's occupied for the next hour. Sorry."

"What? You've already got our coin." Raphen pulled his hand from Siree and clenched his hands at his sides.

"I have a couple copies of the key, forgot I'd given you that one. Just wait in the bar till it opens." He said and turned his back to them.

"Alright, we'll wait," the words burned Raphen as he forced the words past his teeth, but seeing Siree's face, he did it. He grabbed Siree's hand, and pushed a way through to the bar.

She'd looked ready to rip into the fat, balding man. Siree could look pretty fierce when she had wanted to be, but after a second, the innkeeper was sure to realize that he was only dealing with two rats. He'd throw them out - and pocket their money. Giving the man an earful wasn't worth the expense of Siree losing this chance of sleeping in a real bed.

"What you orderin'? Gotta order if you's gonna sit." The man slapped the scarred wooden bar with a rag as he spoke.

"Two mugs of half and half," Raphen ordered.

The bartender shook his head, but took his coin. Raphen took the two mugs the bartender poured and went over to a small table in the corner. They'd sit here, and - hopefully - go unnoticed by the rest of the inn's evening guests.

Raphen looked around. On the other side of the fire that was smoking the room, gambling went on at two tables across the room. Two men three tables over had just traded something, barely concealing the bag beneath the table. Raphen took a sip of his drink. Not everyone went to the Shadow market. A couple went up the stair on the side of the room closer than arm in arm, followed a one coming down. Ra had mentioned that some sought out skin here, but not the other dealing.

′ _It's not like we haven't seen stuff like this before. It'll be worth it, just wait a little longer._ ′ Raphen thought, glad that Siree had her hood pulled up. A hood attracted less attention than a grown girl in a corner. As it was, no one had looked twice at them.

The main door opened, admitting a guy that had to be just a couple inches short of seven feet tall, with a full cloak and his hood pulled forward. He didn't even bother to stoop like the other patrons as he barely cleared the doorway, standing straight and tall like a lost human lord.

That cloak. It was made from the skin of some large animal and showed spots of wear, but he recognized that full cloak. He'd chased it across most of the Shadow Market. Raphen's trained eye traveled the rest of his worn garments. They were just as well made and dark, right down to the pommel of a long sword hanging from his waist.

His eyes went back to the stranger's face. His skin was pale, like that of a ghost of someone who'd died, and the planes of his face were too sharp, too angled to share a span of time with mortality. His eyes... his eyes were light gray, like the side of a cloud in shadow, and they were looking strait at Raphen.

His face looked alien, and the expression that rose on it was just as unknown to Raphen. Raphen froze, unable to move, holding his breath as this shadow kept him locked in it's gaze.

Then that face turned, taking with it those eyes as their owner walked over to the fire, and he breathed again. What was that person? Why was that person here while Raphen was?

"Come on Siree, let's go see if our room's opened up," Raphen said.

The innkeeper said their room had - finally - opened up. Raphen led the way up the stairs, its boards creaking beneath their feet. The creaking continued all the way down the hall, pausing only when Raphen put the key into the lock and opened the door.

Siree ignored the table with a lamp still burning on it, ignored the stains in the paper covering the walls, and jumped right up onto the bed. It creaked from her slight weight but held. Raphen locked the door behind him, set the key down on the table beside the lamp, and went over to the window. He pulled the curtains pulled back to reveal only locked shutters, but he grabbed the key and swung them open. Raphen snorted. There were only short buildings locked in by larger ones. Their view at home was better. Disappointed, he turned away.

"It's still nice, don't you think Siree? Siree..." Raphen repeated as his eyes went wide. He'd stuck an arm out behind him. While Raphen had been busy undoing the cover on the window, Siree had been undoing her clothes.

"What are you doin' Siree?"

"What? Isn't this what you planned? Don't you like me, Raph?" She asked, looking like she'd been slapped.

Raphen opened and closed his mouth, at a loss for words. Siree was a sister. When had this happened? Had Ra known?

"Don't you love me, Raph?"

"I - I... not like..." How would she understood, or listen? He cherished her, but not like this. He was more than fond of her, but not in the way she was seeking.

"I ain't beautiful, but I don't look like a child anymore Raphen," she said.

Her body was changed from that of the sniveling child that had been left, bare, on the street to die. Neither of them had ever been well fed, but her body had acquired curves, and Raphen wondered when those had gotten there. He'd never noticed them.

"Isn't that enough?" The light from the lamp illuminated her skinny body, giving a golden glow to parts of her body that had never been tanned. Her skin looked softer, and the dirt on it like exotic tattoos.

"I can give you whatever you want," she said as she lifted both of her arms out toward him. It was the same pose from the first moment he'd seen her, and her face was just as openly begging him to take her into his arms.

For a moment he tried to think of her in this other way, but all he saw was that little girl. He saw Siree the child, not Siree the woman, and couldn't see her any other way.

"No Siree, no. I - "

"Get out! Go then!" She said. Her face - the face that he'd always thought to be so sweet - twisted in rage at his refusal. She looked around for something to throw at him then, but in this sparse room there wasn't anything. She screamed at him to get out, over and over, her voice broken with sobs that fought their way up her throat.

"Remember to lock the window," he reminded her before climbing out of it to drop down two stories into the night. He ran across the road and down the alley from earlier. Out of sight, he climbed up the side of a building to its bare roof and stopped.

Across the road, Siree pulled the curtains closed, but didn't put the boards back in place. She always forgot stuff like that. Raphen sat down on the stone rooftop, gaze on the inn as the cold gradually seeped in. He wished he had a long cloak. Anything to block the wind that howled around him, digging in icy claws to take away his warmth in handfuls.

His eyes wanted to close, his limbs wanted to sleep. With a deep sigh, he looked up at the moon. A bird, all white like a ghost, flew high in the sky, a hunter in the night. He watched it until it was gone from sight. Perhaps he should go back inside now, talk with Siree. He could apologize at the least.

He went to the roof's edge and scrambled over to the side of the building and down as fast as his tired feet could carry him. With his eyes on the inn, he hardly watched where he walked. His own thoughts tumbled around his mind. Then Ra stepped around the corner of the building.

"This way, you'll do some good for the guild. For me." Ra said.

Raphen realized someone was breathing heavily behind him, but it was too late. Pain laced the back of his head, and everything went black. He'd been nabbed, and he'd never seen it coming.


	6. Chapter 6

"That idiot." Lucian hissed the next morning as he paced in a blur behind the Tipsy Sailor. "No, I was the fool."

Lucian had been intrigued since the moment he saw the man crouching on a rooftop below him. His scent in the wind had the spice of a draemling in it, so different from the sour musk of humanity. A draemling, who was somehow in a kingdom as intolerant as Kaigarn.

He had always considered draemlings his people, if not his race. He had followed the man with ease, unable to keep from pestering him in the market. To be chased for once had been entertaining, but it made him want to feed that night. He had left, only for a few hours, but it was enough for the fool to be taken. He should have taken care of that Ra when he first saw him chatting with slavers. Lucian abhorred slavery, and for slavers to take that male? He could not allow it. He would search for the male, and those that had taken him would be sorry for the rest of their short lives when Lucian found them.

There was hunting yet for Lucian to do, and he hated to lose anything to another when the creature didn't choose to leave itself. Lucian called up strands of Power from within to wrap his limbs and belongings, then seep in to transform them. Anyone that watched would have seen a great white hawk appear from shadow, fly up over the city's rabble of buildings, and off into the breaking dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally something from Lucian's POV. I like his character, but it will be awhile before we see him again. Now, to see what's going on with Raphen...


End file.
